Hi Ho Silverheel’s Takes Win Streak to Canada

Hi Ho Silverheel’s, after winning seven consecutive harness races at Los Alamitos and another in New Jersey, resumes his Eastern invasion tonight at Mohawk Raceway, 25 miles west of Toronto. The $50,000 leg of the Graduate Series will be the 5-year-old pacer’s toughest race, for despite his purse total of $475,096, Hi Ho Silverheel’s ranks only eighth in earnings in the 10-horse field.

The Mohawk race has drawn four millionaires, including Jennas Beach Boy, who was voted pacer of the year for 1995 by the U.S. Trotting Assn. Jennas Beach Boy, who has earned $1.5 million, won 14 of 16 starts last year and has won his only outing this year.

Hi Ho Silverheel’s, who was driven by Rick Kuebler at Los Alamitos, will be handled at Mohawk by Peter Wrenn, who was also in the sulky for their narrow win on April 13 in the $100,000 Freehold Cup.

“I call him a poor man’s horse,” said Milan Smith, the former movie stuntman who trains Hi Ho Silverheel’s and races the 5-year-old in partnership with Roy Ray Moorefield. “We paid $1,856 for him at a California yearling sale. That’s $1,700 and $156 in state tax. It’s kind of a Cinderella story.”